"A digital audio workstation, like a guitar or piano, is a musical instrument," says Tal
Herzberg, a Grammy-winning engineer, producer, programmer, and mixer
who was one of the first to embrace computers for music. "Most musicians
I know today use digital production tools in their creative processes. The
ability to hear ideas played back practically in real time is addictive."

Herzberg, whose work with A-list artists like the Black Eyed Peas, Vanessa
Carlton, Counting Crows, and the Goo Goo Dolls has earned him six Grammy nominations,
calls himself "a first-generation nonlinear engineer," and rightfully
so. He was one of a handful of early adopters when digital audio workstations
(DAWs) emerged 12 years ago. Back then, when DAWs were cursed by frequent system
crashes and lost vocal takes, Herzberg spent more time paging through owner's
manuals than setting up microphones. Those hands-on lessons have paid off big
time.

In 2001 his digital recording and mixing work propelled Christina Aguilera,
Pink, Mya, Lil' Kim, and Missy Elliott to the Grammy podium for their "Lady
Marmalade" remake (from Moulin Rouge). In 2002, Herzberg's
touch helped Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" win Record
of the Year. His great DAW mixes on the Black Eyed Peas' genre-blending Elephunk were
nominated for the Holy Grail category of Best Engineered Non-Classical Album
in 2003, losing only to engineer Nigel Godhead's work on Radiohead's Hail
to the Thief. Elephunk is up again for the 2004 Record of the Year,
Best Rap Song, and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group awards, and yet another
Tal-aided project—Queen Latifah's Dana Owens Album—has
been nominated for Best Jazz Vocal Album. (Hear excerpts
from these tracks.)

Do all these very creative and celebrated album projects find you, or is
it the other way around?

I think it's a mutual process. Every professional experience I've
ever been through taught me a new lesson, be it technical or human in nature,
and each showed me various elements in different lights. Successful acts are
very careful when they assemble creative and technical production teams, so
I assume that the bag full of experiences I carry helps them make a positive
decision about me.

Herzberg, who grew up in Israel, had played bass on more than 60 records
by the time he was 22.

How important have digital audio workstations and plug-in software tools
become to the act of songwriting?

The Black Eyed Peas are a great example of full digital integration in the
creative writing and production process. As with many other hip-hop artists,
most of their songs begin with a rhythm loop or a sample from an old record.
Will-I-Am, the group's leader and main creative force, knows Digidesign's
Pro Tools inside out. He typically programs the beats or samples in Pro Tools
and then tracks [records] all his parts and the other band members' parts.
There are hundreds of production decisions he makes about cuts, mutes, special
effects, timing, and looping before handing a session off to the band's
producers, engineers, and mixers.

Has the speed and facility of computer desktop recording made your job
as an engineer more creative or more deadline-intensive?

Probably both. It's more creative because the possibilities are endless
and are now embedded into a single toolbox. But sometimes we have to remind
ourselves that any search for those possibilities has to come to an end in
order to impose a sensation of arrival and closure on one's self and
the song. Deadlines usually kick in when projects are tied to release dates
and whether the project is to become a single, an album, a video game, a movie,
or a TV show. You've just got to deal with it as those deadlines arise.

How does digital audio sound to you compared with analog recordings?

That's a rather loaded question you're asking me—in fact,
it's borderline religious! Modern AD/DA [analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog]
converters sound very pristine and clean and can tolerate very high instrument
and vocal recording levels. For me, the advantages of the nonlinear work environment
are far more important than the subjective and arguable advantages the sound
of analog tape offers. In other words, as much as I'd love the romance
of riding a horse to the studio every day, I still prefer driving a car.

What is your current computer and Pro Tools setup in the studio?

I'm on a dual 2GHz Apple G5 with two gigabytes of RAM and a Cinema display,
and I use Pro Tools|HD version 6.7 software with three of Digidesign's
192 I/O [input/output] interfaces and their SYNC I/O master clock interface.

For programming, editing, and creating sounds, I use a variety of plug-ins
and software instruments from Waves, Eventide, McDSP, and Spectrasonics. And
for monitoring it all, I trust my SSL [Solid State Logic] AWS900 mixing console,
DAW controller, and KRK E8T speakers.

A well-rounded producer, Herzberg studied composition at the Dick Grove
School of Music.

What advice would you give to others who are balancing multiple roles—on
both sides of the computer—as engineer, producer, musician, mixer,
and editor?

If you're truly a musician, you will make computers make music for you. If
you're not, that shouldn't stop you from programming beats and
using MIDI and other production methods to create music. Recording and mixing,
though, are acquired skills that can only be learned hands-on. Get the gear,
start experimenting, and in a few years you'll be able to produce good
results.

As for editing, that's the tricky part. You can do a lot of good slicing
and dicing of recorded tracks into something new, but you can also do a lot
of damage if you go too far with your edits.

Is it a question of creativity versus technology at that point?

It's mostly about developing taste and being able to solve problems
upon arrival. Modern-day desktop recording brings all these elements together,
allowing most up-and-coming producers out there to function in all the above-mentioned
fields. So to answer your question, I don't have a dull moment in my
workday.

Tell me about the educational "DAW
World" columns you wrote for EQ magazine. What did you
like best about that experience?

I had a great deal of fun doing it. I approached their editors about writing
it because I felt a need to share my knowledge and experience with readers
as a means of intellectual outlet and community giveback. I feel extremely
lucky to have hopped on the DAW train at the beginning of its journey and,
in doing so, I have managed to learn from making every conceivable screw-up
in the book. That was way before most engineers and musicians even knew what
a DAW was, so there was nobody around to ask questions when I was stuck on
something. I had no master's shoulder to look over. Using digital audio
and music production tools back then was truly the Wild West.

Tal's QuickTip 1: Audio Data Management

"Digital storage media, and mainly hard disks, are not fail-safe," Herzberg
warns. "I can't count all the hysterical calls I've received
from people who have lost days, weeks, and even months of creative work due
to all sorts of system crashes.

"Considering the time, money, and creative investments each engineer,
producer, remixer, and musician entrusts to hard disks, it's a wonder
we carry on when those magic moments in the studio are irretrievably lost.
It's simply never going to sound the same as the first time. The stars
are aligned differently, and the drummer will likely get stuck in traffic and
so his feel and timing are going to be completely different. Beyond the performances
one never can never truly recreate, there are rebooking costs with the same
studios, engineers, players, and vocalists to consider. Even if a data-recovery
company can indeed salvage the lost data, the lost time ultimately equates
to lost profits.

"Don't get caught with your pants down! Always keep at least one
ongoing backup copy of your work drive(s), preferably two. I always keep a
cloned disk and a cloned data tape (such as Sony's AIT) running at all
times. That practice has saved me from countless sticky situations over the
course of my career."

Tal's QuickTip 2: Committed Recording Chains

Recording engineers have always been divided into two conceptual camps: "flat" and "processed" sound.
Regardless of which group an engineer or musician favors, it's best to
know how each works and why.

"A 'flat' engineer chooses to use a minimal recording chain," explains
Herzberg. "Just a microphone or instrument and a quality preamp wired
directly to a recorder. They then insert compression and EQ into the recorder's
monitoring path and thus avoid committing to the final sound and colors of
the recordings. That leaves the 'painting' job to the folks on
the final mixing stage. On the other hand, the 'processed' engineers
choose to condition signals with compression, EQ, and effects before those
signals reach the recorder and thus commit to somewhat final recording colors."

Herzberg suggests the latter approach if an experienced engineer—unafraid
of making sonic commitments—is in the room. But if there's an ounce
of doubt about the level of commitment involved, he advises proceeding with
caution with those precious vocal takes, guitar lines, and "beautiful
accidents" in the studio.

"You can combine analog preamps with software effects and dynamics plug-ins
to create hybrid recording chains that sound great yet can later be partially
modified," he says. "Start by finding the right recording levels
using the preamps' gain stage [signal level] controls and then insert
the desired signal processing plug-ins on the monitor paths of the recorder's
returns." (That lets you hear and react to the effects without recording
them.) "Also beware of any monitoring latency issues [that is, delays in
the playback signal] with your DAW system. If you're recording with a
fast computer and a dedicated DSP platform, such as Pro Tools TDM or Pro Tools|HD,
you'll rarely, if ever, have to cope with that problem."

Tal Herzberg with Beth Hart; while playing bass in her
band, he also honed his computer skills as one of the
first product specialists for Waves.